watchOS 26 Brings Your iPhone's Control Center to Your Apple Watch
Apple Watches are gaining support for custom Control Center controls.
Starting with watchOS 26, controls that are available in the Control Center gallery on an iPhone are automatically available on the Apple Watch as well. This is true even if the iOS app offering the control lacks a corresponding watchOS app. When you tap on one of these controls, the action is performed on the companion iPhone.
watchOS app developers can also create entirely new custom controls for watchOS, and in this case the action is performed on the Apple Watch directly.
The custom controls can even be assigned to the Action button on all Apple Watch Ultra models.
Until now, the Apple Watch's Control Center only offered controls from Apple, such as Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, Theater Mode, and Flashlight toggles. You can access the Control Center on watchOS by pressing on the side button.
All of these changes mirror those introduced on the iPhone with iOS 18 last year.
watchOS 26 is currently in beta for the Apple Watch Series 6 and newer. The update will likely be released to the general public in September.
Popular Stories
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Google's latest wave of announcements for Android and Gemini, the newly announced Fitbit Air, and Apple Watch Series 12 rumors.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos
The centerpiece of Google's announcements this week was Gemini Intelligence, Google's new umbrella platform for AI across phones, watches, cars,...
Apple will unveil watchOS 27 during its WWDC 2026 keynote on Monday, June 8, and a handful of new features have been rumored already.
The first developer beta of watchOS 27 should be available immediately following the keynote, and a public beta typically follows in July. The update should be released to all users with a compatible Apple Watch model in September.
Below, we recap watchOS...
For many years now, it has been rumored that the Apple Watch will eventually gain non-invasive blood sugar monitoring capabilities, which would enable millions of people with diabetes to track their blood glucose levels without needing to prick their skin with a needle or wear a dedicated continuous glucose monitor.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple recently shifted oversight of...
